Pathfinder a la Mode

Question:

Since Skill Checks appear to be an action and attacks appear to be an action, what's the benefit of Intimidating Strike vs Attack + Intimidate?

Well, from the looks of it you automatically frighten a hit enemy and I assume a Fighter may have a better time hitting something than having success on an Intimidate Check (specially if you weren't specializing in Intimidate to begin with). Also states that you make the target flat-footed until your next turn, which is great for your non-flanking Rogue friend (and everyone in general) and may be a thing that doesn't happen on a normal Intimidate.

Overall seems a way stronger option than Attack+Intimidate as two actions. And even if Intimidate (as a skill) does flat-foot the target; this special action allows you to not have any points in Intimidate and still have better chances of frightening the target, since it uses your chances to hit to activate, which are usually great on your first attack as a Fighter.

(All of this assuming that the very short explanation we got in the example is all that there is to it. probably not. XD)

Lady Firebird wrote:

edduardco wrote:

Mark Seifter wrote:

MadScientistWorking wrote:

kyrt-ryder wrote:

Glad to see magic item crafting (sans spell batteries) shift to the role of craftsmen rather than mages.

I mean we don't know that yet because well the last edition you could do that too. It was such a crappy feat.

The Magical Crafter skill feat is the feat to make magic items. It is the feat for spellcasters. It is the feat for fighters.

You will need to take Magical Crafter for each type of magic item?

I really hope crafting has been seriously reworked so it doesn't take weeks or months to craft a high level magic item.

I hope for the opposite, though it'd be easy to houserule. High-level magic items are, by all accounts, going to be much more powerful as befits their stature. These things should be forged over time and great labors. The One Ring shouldn't be forged in a single night.

This, entirely.

I hope crafting the better, higher end items take a lot of time and investment, potentially some quests to gain the right items. Give them flavor, history, meaning.. and a story. Definitely not just ok, I spend 1 day of downtime to create my +4 Sword of Demonslaying. Where's the excitement behind that? Not just having it but telling people how you came to have it.

Yes, definitely. Not every campaign must be to save the world or kingdom. Maybe you must venture across distant realms of untold dangers to acquire the precious starmetal you need to forge the most powerful sword seen in this age of the world. They've already shown that magic items are gonna be a lot more impactful than just a "+5 sword" as opposed to a "+4 sword." These things can shake the very pillars of creation. More than a single night, except as some really high-level epic feat that becomes legend, seems in order for me.

Plus, it's great adventure fodder for everyone. "You need this, I need this, let's take a long and perilous journey to acquire these items." Which then makes generous use of both encounter mode and downtime mode.

I really hope the magic crafting system is inspired by the dynamic crafting mechanics. It can actually make making a magic item an interesting activity instead of just a roll(that is likely skipped if you can take 10 on it) with nothing else happening.

edduardco wrote:

Mark Seifter wrote:

MadScientistWorking wrote:

kyrt-ryder wrote:

Glad to see magic item crafting (sans spell batteries) shift to the role of craftsmen rather than mages.

I mean we don't know that yet because well the last edition you could do that too. It was such a crappy feat.

The Magical Crafter skill feat is the feat to make magic items. It is the feat for spellcasters. It is the feat for fighters.

You will need to take Magical Crafter for each type of magic item?

I really hope crafting has been seriously reworked so it doesn't take weeks or months to craft a high level magic item.

I hope for the opposite, though it'd be easy to houserule. High-level magic items are, by all accounts, going to be much more powerful as befits their stature. These things should be forged over time and great labors. The One Ring shouldn't be forged in a single night.

Probably not a single night.

A single week on the other hand? Totally makes sense to me.

EDIT: I will note that I'm referring to the crafting, not accumulating the ingredients. Quest away if that is your desire.

Yeah, something like exploration mode would be nice in some dungeon crawls. The practice of rushing through rooms while your minute buffs are up kinda annoys me in the current iteration of Pathfinder, but it becomes very standard after you get to level ten and above.

MadScientistWorking wrote:

kyrt-ryder wrote:

Glad to see magic item crafting (sans spell batteries) shift to the role of craftsmen rather than mages.

I mean we don't know that yet because well the last edition you could do that too. It was such a crappy feat.

The Magical Crafter skill feat is the feat to make magic items. It is the feat for spellcasters. It is the feat for fighters.

Thank you for elaborating.

However, the barbarian one feels really weak unless it can deal with effects besides just fear.

Stuff like this is going to be extremely meta-dependent; it could be that fear effects are suddenly much more dangerous in 2E where compulsions are significantly nerfed. Using Spheres of Might as an example, adding that 3rd party supplement to the game changes CMD from an almost irrelevant stat for most encounters to being nearly as valuable as will just because there is so much scary stuff you can do with combat maneuvers and they're so much more readily available.

People saying how Intimidating Strike doesn't require Intimidate.. I don't think that's actually how it's going to work. They didn't give us a whole feat writeup. I'm thinking it at the very least requires Intimidate Proficiency, then inflicts whatever level of fear your Intimidate proficiency allows. So if you only go up to shaken, the feat also causes shaken. If your Master at Intimidate can cause Panic, so does the feat.

Heck, it may even require you to use Intimidate as your attack roll. We don't know anything yet, really. I do like the flavor of it though!

Bardic Dave wrote:

A semantic quibble

Of course, you're fine with a level 14 Wizard on the 4th level of the dungeon casting a 4th level spell despite having 4 negative levels from energy drain. :)

Level with me for a second. Was that a spell used to level the floor and run away so he could level up?

Looking great. I look forward to seeing downtime activities in particular.

It looks like we will be getting new rules for item crafting as well, which is good. I also like that it seems we will have more specific rules on how to handle a wider variety of downtime activities. This could help keep actual down time from happening at the table.

I really like how counterspell is a reaction. I also like seeing a wide variety of reactions other than attack of opportunity, which will make for more dynamic combats. As much as I like AoO, I like seeing other actions that could be just as effective and cool to do in combat.

Exploration and the skills has me really interested in how that mode works.

I really hope the magic crafting system is inspired by the dynamic crafting mechanics. It can actually make making a magic item an interesting activity instead of just a roll(that is likely skipped if you can take 10 on it) with nothing else happening.

I was fond of that system as well. It's definitely an improvement over "ok, roll a die (and/or just autosucceed)".

I want to echo the notion that adding "mode" to it will add some meta game-y feel to it all. I'm also not sure that the goal has been achieved if the goal was to be less confusing. Just calling combat "combat" seemed to work fine enough. "Encounter mode" sounds like it can be anything. You can "encounter" an old man walking down the road to buy pastries.

But, in practice both combat and not-combat will likely just be like it always has, with the mayor change that what it's called in the book is different. What I am more concerned about is "downtime mode". More specifically how much of it is hardcoded into the game. At most we use downtime as a timeskip. Other than that our games tend to not have "downtime", being a continuous narrative. There's no "between adventures". As has become the custom with these previews there's not enough to go on to be sure about anything, but I can't help but be skeptical of the implication of sizeable portions of the core rules be something that I'd just skip (those of you that wanted to throw that one at me, beat ya to it).

Dead Phoenix wrote:

I really hope the magic crafting system is inspired by the dynamic crafting mechanics. It can actually make making a magic item an interesting activity instead of just a roll(that is likely skipped if you can take 10 on it) with nothing else happening.

I was fond of that system as well. It's definitely an improvement over "ok, roll a die (and/or just autosucceed)".

Perhaps the critical success/failure rules can feed into it (if succeeding by more than ten grants some kind of minor boon, there’s no way my players are going to take ten - they are gamblers, through and through).

Kalindlara wrote:

Dead Phoenix wrote:

I really hope the magic crafting system is inspired by the dynamic crafting mechanics. It can actually make making a magic item an interesting activity instead of just a roll(that is likely skipped if you can take 10 on it) with nothing else happening.

I was fond of that system as well. It's definitely an improvement over "ok, roll a die (and/or just autosucceed)".

Perhaps the critical success/failure rules can feed into it (if succeeding by more than ten grants some kind of minor boon, there’s no way my players are going to take ten - they are gamblers, through and through).

While, in an overall sense I am totally in on this. I am not too familiar with these rules in practice. One thing I would not want to see is it generating too many new points of failure but instead points of potential delay. That is, if you fail a stage it isn't the destruction of the item and loss of all the materials but simply loss of what is invested in that specific stage at most and the requirement of trying again, and waiting for the opportunity to do so. Or maybe it decreases the effectiveness of the magic item some while other critical successes improve it.

I didn't think about this before, but I really like the new initiative system. The ability of a character to use virtually any skill (if the GM allows) to start an encounter has a lot of flexibility. My players who always want to try to bluff or intimidate the bad guys to gain an advantage now have more options at their disposal.

If there are different druid orders, can they have different taboos? Like maybe one that isn't forbidden from metal armour (or, Brigh willing, one that restricts itself from another creature's skin and strives towards the perfect natural material for armour, meteoric and native metals)?

Arachnofiend wrote:

I notice the skill is called "Nature" rather than "Knowledge: Nature". Does it still key off of Intelligence or is it wisdom now (and therefore a more appropriate skill for Druids to have)?

Maybe Nature's still Intelligence-based for everyone else, but the wild empathy ability now also allows classes with it (wild empathy) to use it (the Nature skill) with Wisdom instead?

Why does it need to key off of anything? You'll notice they were particular in not mentioning ability bonus when talking about proficiency. My guess is that if you're trying to know something about a creature, you'll roll and Intelligence based Nature check, and if you're trying to do Herbalism (or Tracking?), you'll roll a Wisdom based one...

Steve Geddes wrote:

Kalindlara wrote:

Dead Phoenix wrote:

I really hope the magic crafting system is inspired by the dynamic crafting mechanics. It can actually make making a magic item an interesting activity instead of just a roll(that is likely skipped if you can take 10 on it) with nothing else happening.

I was fond of that system as well. It's definitely an improvement over "ok, roll a die (and/or just autosucceed)".

Perhaps the critical success/failure rules can feed into it (if succeeding by more than ten grants some kind of minor boon, there’s no way my players are going to take ten - they are gamblers, through and through).

While, in an overall sense I am totally in on this. I am not too familiar with these rules in practice. One thing I would not want to see is it generating too many new points of failure but instead points of potential delay. That is, if you fail a stage it isn't the destruction of the item and loss of all the materials but simply loss of what is invested in that specific stage at most and the requirement of trying again, and waiting for the opportunity to do so. Or maybe it decreases the effectiveness of the magic item some while other critical successes improve it.

Notably, the unchained item crafting rules had the same 4 levels of success, but instead of +-10, it was based on the the 4 possible results of having 2 participants pass/fail 2 tasks. And since magic item crafting was multiple checks throughout the process, even a critical failure was merely a set back many times (with some exceptions). interesting Events were my favourite part of Unchained Item crafting, and inspired our group to make customized events(Homemade grapnel gloves? Theres a bit of a mistake and the rope is spewing wildly with little sign of stopping! Get someone to help remove the rope and figure out what's actually going wrong).

I'm not really feeling the "mode" terminology; if it is in the book I'll probably just nod and move through it. I don't need anything special to call these time periods and adding mode to them seems needless to me.

I'll also echo those that have remarked that these blog posts are very light on information. The tease thing isn't helping expectations (at least for me) and just fuels endless speculation threads and fights. More concrete data might help with some people's fears and worries or cement other's desire for the new edition, or even ward off the "It sounds like a rehash of X edition".

Steve Geddes wrote:

Kalindlara wrote:

Dead Phoenix wrote:

I really hope the magic crafting system is inspired by the dynamic crafting mechanics. It can actually make making a magic item an interesting activity instead of just a roll(that is likely skipped if you can take 10 on it) with nothing else happening.

I was fond of that system as well. It's definitely an improvement over "ok, roll a die (and/or just autosucceed)".

Perhaps the critical success/failure rules can feed into it (if succeeding by more than ten grants some kind of minor boon, there’s no way my players are going to take ten - they are gamblers, through and through).

While, in an overall sense I am totally in on this. I am not too familiar with these rules in practice. One thing I would not want to see is it generating too many new points of failure but instead points of potential delay. That is, if you fail a stage it isn't the destruction of the item and loss of all the materials but simply loss of what is invested in that specific stage at most and the requirement of trying again, and waiting for the opportunity to do so. Or maybe it decreases the effectiveness of the magic item some while other critical successes improve it.

Yeah, the four steps would need to be thoughtfully defined. Critical failure shouldn't be 'go back to scratch, all that gold is wasted'. Similarly, critical success shouldn't be 'your item is a whole new level of awesomeness'. Even at a minimal impact level, it would definitely add a frisson of excitement to the process (at least for players like mine).

Darius Alazario wrote:

Steve Geddes wrote:

Kalindlara wrote:

Dead Phoenix wrote:

I really hope the magic crafting system is inspired by the dynamic crafting mechanics. It can actually make making a magic item an interesting activity instead of just a roll(that is likely skipped if you can take 10 on it) with nothing else happening.

I was fond of that system as well. It's definitely an improvement over "ok, roll a die (and/or just autosucceed)".

Perhaps the critical success/failure rules can feed into it (if succeeding by more than ten grants some kind of minor boon, there’s no way my players are going to take ten - they are gamblers, through and through).

While, in an overall sense I am totally in on this. I am not too familiar with these rules in practice. One thing I would not want to see is it generating too many new points of failure but instead points of potential delay. That is, if you fail a stage it isn't the destruction of the item and loss of all the materials but simply loss of what is invested in that specific stage at most and the requirement of trying again, and waiting for the opportunity to do so. Or maybe it decreases the effectiveness of the magic item some while other critical successes improve it.

Notably, the unchained item crafting rules had the same 4 levels of success, but instead of +-10, it was based on the the 4 possible results of having 2 participants pass/fail 2 tasks. And since magic item crafting was multiple checks throughout the process, even a critical failure was merely a set back many times (with some exceptions). interesting Events were my favourite part of Unchained Item crafting, and inspired our group to make customized events(Homemade grapnel gloves? Theres a bit of a mistake and the rope is spewing wildly with little sign of stopping! Get someone to help remove the rope and figure out what's actually going wrong).

Glad you guys enjoyed! That system was I think my lengthiest addition to Pathfinder Unchained (my first Pathfinder book ever as a designer).

Interested to see how (or if!) things like spell durations interact with changes in mode! I'm super on board with not tracking minutes or rounds as we're walking around a dungeon, but am curious how that fits into broader verisimilitude and world building type stuff.

More concrete data might help with some people's fears and worries or cement other's desire for the new edition, or even ward off the "It sounds like a rehash of X edition".

Sadly, I don't think so. Vic Wertz specifically posted that he thought it would be a bad idea (for everyone) for Pathfinder to try to compete with 5E. Even such an explicit statement didn't stop people in that thread speaking as if PF2 is trying to out-5E 5E.

These things are annoying for those of us who are already hooked in to getting the playtest document. Their function is marketting though. They want to make sure that by May everyone who might be interested in buying a hardcopy book has heard of it and that by August everyone who might be interested in participating knows how to download the PDF.

They don't want to give too much information and turn off potential playtesters plus trigger too many 'doom and gloom' predictions of apocalypse (granted some are inevitable) nor do they want to give too little (and have some potential playtesters tune them out). It's a fine line to walk, imo and unfortunately we've all got different things we'd like more of and different things we'd like less of. (I have no interest in seeing monster statblocks prior to August, for example. I'm betting that's not the case for a large cohort of potential playtesters).

I think it's worth remembering that these blogs are not to show us the game really. They're to get us interested in the playtest.

The playtest is to show us the game.

MusicAddict wrote:

Darius Alazario wrote:

Steve Geddes wrote:

Kalindlara wrote:

Dead Phoenix wrote:

I really hope the magic crafting system is inspired by the dynamic crafting mechanics. It can actually make making a magic item an interesting activity instead of just a roll(that is likely skipped if you can take 10 on it) with nothing else happening.

I was fond of that system as well. It's definitely an improvement over "ok, roll a die (and/or just autosucceed)".

Perhaps the critical success/failure rules can feed into it (if succeeding by more than ten grants some kind of minor boon, there’s no way my players are going to take ten - they are gamblers, through and through).

While, in an overall sense I am totally in on this. I am not too familiar with these rules in practice. One thing I would not want to see is it generating too many new points of failure but instead points of potential delay. That is, if you fail a stage it isn't the destruction of the item and loss of all the materials but simply loss of what is invested in that specific stage at most and the requirement of trying again, and waiting for the opportunity to do so. Or maybe it decreases the effectiveness of the magic item some while other critical successes improve it.

Notably, the unchained item crafting rules had the same 4 levels of success, but instead of +-10, it was based on the the 4 possible results of having 2 participants pass/fail 2 tasks. And since magic item crafting was multiple checks throughout the process, even a critical failure was merely a set back many times (with some exceptions). interesting Events were my favourite part of Unchained Item crafting, and inspired our group to make customized events(Homemade grapnel gloves? Theres a bit of a mistake and the rope is spewing wildly with little sign of stopping! Get someone to help remove the rope and figure out what's actually going wrong).

Glad you guys enjoyed! That system was I think my lengthiest...

Thank you for this contribution. It most certainly looks to add a lot more story and heart into magic items, bringing them away from just being another number on the sheet. Hopefully you bring this, or something like it, into the new edition. :)

Darius Alazario wrote:

Lady Firebird wrote:

edduardco wrote:

Mark Seifter wrote:

MadScientistWorking wrote:

kyrt-ryder wrote:

Glad to see magic item crafting (sans spell batteries) shift to the role of craftsmen rather than mages.

I mean we don't know that yet because well the last edition you could do that too. It was such a crappy feat.

The Magical Crafter skill feat is the feat to make magic items. It is the feat for spellcasters. It is the feat for fighters.

You will need to take Magical Crafter for each type of magic item?

I really hope crafting has been seriously reworked so it doesn't take weeks or months to craft a high level magic item.

I hope for the opposite, though it'd be easy to houserule. High-level magic items are, by all accounts, going to be much more powerful as befits their stature. These things should be forged over time and great labors. The One Ring shouldn't be forged in a single night.

This, entirely.

I hope crafting the better, higher end items take a lot of time and investment, potentially some quests to gain the right items. Give them flavor, history, meaning.. and a story. Definitely not just ok, I spend 1 day of downtime to create my +4 Sword of Demonslaying. Where's the excitement behind that? Not just having it but telling people how you came to have it.

Yes, definitely. Not every campaign must be to save the world or kingdom. Maybe you must venture across distant realms of untold dangers to acquire the precious starmetal you need to forge the most powerful sword seen in this age of the world. They've already shown that magic items are gonna be a lot more impactful than just a "+5 sword" as opposed to a "+4 sword." These things can shake the very pillars of creation. More than a single night, except as some really high-level epic feat that becomes legend, seems in order for me.

Plus, it's great adventure fodder for everyone. "You need this, I need this, let's take a long and...

But a lot of campaigns have time counter on them, most AP that I remember are like that, so in all those cases crafters are screwed. Also, if the GM have to pause everything because the crafter needs to go in a quest to craft a single magic item, it will also requires the agreement of the other players, and just for one magic item. Will the GM need to pause all the setting until four or five quest are completed because the other players want their own magic item crafted? And even more, is no just one in a life time item, a dedicated crater will want to make various items and improve them too. And finally, now the GM will need to come up with all of those crafting quests and insert them in the history, seems like a lot of extra work for the GM. And again, inserting crafting quests inside an AP will be quite difficult.

Quest crafting is just no fair for crafters or the GM, it only makes sense for artifacts because they are plot devices.

EDIT: And the word fodder remind me of grinding in videogames, I despise grinding in videogames, certainly is not something I want in Pathfinder.

While I'm happy that retraining is being made a baseline rule of the game, taking "As little as a week" gives me concerns about those rules ever being particularly usable.

I understand that having characters swap around class feats day to day is something you're probably trying to avoid, but in most of the games I've played having a solid week of downtime is a rarity, if it ever occurs at all.

While I'm happy that retraining is being made a baseline rule of the game, taking "As little as a week" gives me concerns about those rules ever being particularly usable.

I understand that having characters swap around class feats day to day is something you're probably trying to avoid, but in most of the games I've played having a solid week of downtime is a rarity, if it ever occurs at all.

This tends to suggest that you're going from level 1 to 20 over the course of a month or two... which I don't think is the typical assumption for a campaign. I think it's fine to assume that characters have blocks of days where they're not doing anything particularly strenuous. Even long overland journeys could be considered "downtime".

If your campaign does have an extremely abbreviated timeline, I'm sure reducing the amount of time it takes to retrain/craft by an order of magnitude makes sense.

Blocks of days does not necessarily guarantee reasonable access to contiguous weeks.

I don't think most (any) Paizo published adventures are on really strict timers, mostly loose ones to create urgency so as to encourage the PCs not to dawdle overlong. So, assuming GMs basically follow the same idea, in practice this would work out where a crafter could craft a few magic items, and a character could retrain a couple of feats, but one wouldn't generally have enough time to kit out the entire rebellion with magic swords or retrain their entire character unless the GM is feeling really generous.

Are there rules for what happens if downtime is interrupted and characters need to finish a task later? For crafting it seems simple enough (pick up where you left off) but what about retraining? Do you just pick right back up where you left off? If you need to leave practice on a new technique and use the old one for several days or even weeks do you forget some of what you had learned?

Edit:cleared up last sentence

knightnday wrote:

More concrete data might help with some people's fears and worries or cement other's desire for the new edition, or even ward off the "It sounds like a rehash of X edition".

Sadly, I don't think so. Vic Wertz specifically posted that he thought it would be a bad idea (for everyone) for Pathfinder to try to compete with 5E. Even such an explicit statement didn't stop people in that thread speaking as if PF2 is trying to out-5E 5E.

These things are annoying for those of us who are already hooked in to getting the playtest document. Their function is marketting though. They want to make sure that by May everyone who might be interested in buying a hardcopy book has heard of it and that by August everyone who might be interested in participating knows how to download the PDF.

They don't want to give too much information and turn off potential playtesters plus trigger too many 'doom and gloom' predictions of apocalypse (granted some are inevitable) nor do they want to give too little (and have some potential playtesters tune them out). It's a fine line to walk, imo and unfortunately we've all got different things we'd like more of and different things we'd like less of. (I have no interest in seeing monster statblocks prior to August, for example. I'm betting that's not the case for a large cohort of potential playtesters).

I think it's worth remembering that these blogs are not to show us the game really. They're to get us interested in the playtest.

The playtest is to show us the game.

Which is good and I can understand the marketing. I just have this image of the next four months being teaser of teaser trailers rather than substance.

An example: I am interested in Deadpool 2. If I spend 4 months trying to figure out whose elbow a two second shot might be and what is going on, I will be far less interested and likely annoyed trying to patch it all together like some intricate jigsaw puzzle.

So yes, it is a fine line and we are early on. I hope the substance will begin to shine through soon, though. I've gotten more data from Mark's comments on playtesting than from the blogs.

Jason Bulmahn wrote:

Use of the word mode just lets of have sentences that make sense. When in the middle of running text we might say, "while exploring", but we also like having the ability to say "During encounter mode, you can..." . Its not really worth delving into on this thread (and seriously.. I do not want to derail things), but we are trying to take a little bit of a lighter hand with hard-coded grammar constructions for our rules so that the text is a bit easier to read and parse.

I’ve been a smidge worried PF2 is going to read either like a law book or a computer manual.

Games which aren’t written in plain English always sit on my shelf. No matter how cunning the game design, if the rules don’t make me read them, I’m never going to play it.

Unfortunately "plain english" is a horrific language for rules, full of implications, shortcuts. euphemisms, inconsistencies and ambiguities. A step to something more structured is better for the game, even if it's harder to adjust to.

A good downtime system is what I really like. I hope there's rules for spell research!

John Lynch 106 wrote:

I also hope it's easy enough to hand-waive away and focus on exploring the world (as in we focus more on what's happening in-character) rather than playing the game (focusing on what abilities we have to get the most advantage out of the current non-combat encounter).

One of the biggest points of separating the modes is to allow exploration mode in particular to explicitly be about exploring the world and not a round-by-round accounting of every action people take.

The big fear here is that as soon as you enter exploring mode you have to erase any active buffs that are not hour/level.

That said.. there’s just... not a ton here. There’s almost no new information here, and most of the new feats kind of yell TRAP to me. Like... spending a reaction to deal damage to an enemy that’s right next to you... and just crit you?

To be fair, the first attack is the most likely to crit. If you can push an enemy away with that reaction then they have to give up an action of their own just to close the distance so they can attack you again, and if their attack wasn't the first act of their turn they will have to decide between moving back up or committing to some other action. The damage is icing, it seems to me the push is what you'd really be hoping for.

I think it's worth remembering that these blogs are not to show us the game really. They're to get us interested in the playtest.

On the other hand, if people find what they see to be distasteful, or even vaguely similar to a system they ran to Paizo to get away from, there is every possibility they will jump ship now.

Why continue purchasing PF1 rules if you decide to move over to, say, d20 Modern.

People who get too upset or disgusted by what they see may very well not stick around long enough for Paizo to put the full rules out.

Use of the word mode just lets of have sentences that make sense.

Jason Bulmahn, everybody! :)

Encounter Mode

Exploration Mode

Downtime Mode

Party Mode

Family Mode

School Mode

Wedding Mode

Divorce Mode

Steve Geddes wrote:

knightnday wrote:

More concrete data might help with some people's fears and worries or cement other's desire for the new edition, or even ward off the "It sounds like a rehash of X edition".

Sadly, I don't think so. Vic Wertz specifically posted that he thought it would be a bad idea (for everyone) for Pathfinder to try to compete with 5E. Even such an explicit statement didn't stop people in that thread speaking as if PF2 is trying to out-5E 5E.

These things are annoying for those of us who are already hooked in to getting the playtest document. Their function is marketting though. They want to make sure that by May everyone who might be interested in buying a hardcopy book has heard of it and that by August everyone who might be interested in participating knows how to download the PDF.

They don't want to give too much information and turn off potential playtesters plus trigger too many 'doom and gloom' predictions of apocalypse (granted some are inevitable) nor do they want to give too little (and have some potential playtesters tune them out). It's a fine line to walk, imo and unfortunately we've all got different things we'd like more of and different things we'd like less of. (I have no interest in seeing monster statblocks prior to August, for example. I'm betting that's not the case for a large cohort of potential playtesters).

I think it's worth remembering that these blogs are not to show us the game really. They're to get us interested in the playtest.

The playtest is to show us the game.

Which is good and I can understand the marketing. I just have this image of the next four months being teaser of teaser trailers rather than substance.

An example: I am interested in Deadpool 2. If I spend 4 months trying to figure out whose elbow a two second shot might be and what is going on, I will be far less interested and likely annoyed trying to patch it all together like some intricate jigsaw puzzle.

So yes, it is a fine line and we are...

Don't forget, these are blogs to give a little insight into a product that is going into public playtesting, not even actual release. You're probably not going to see a lot of substance, that is what the playtest is for. They're just here to keep us interested, and whet our appetite for more.

I figure there is also the matter that the actual playtest rules are not completed yet. So until you send the book to the printers you don't want to give specific detail that could potentially change before the playtest comes out. So we're sure that it's going to have Fighters and Skills and Proficiencies, but the specific text of a feat could change slightly after a single internal playtest game highlights an ambiguity, unintended consequence, math glitch, or whatever.

So it's best to describe approximately what the feat is supposed to do than give rules text for it, because the text is liable to change before august but the intent is not.

It's also possible that the team is using our debates for free brainstorming and market research

It's also possible that the team is using our debates for free brainstorming and market research

I mean, in the context of developing a new game system that said debaters are going to be playing, that isn't necessarily a bad thing

Didn't say it was

Edna Mode wrote:

Arachnofiend wrote:

I notice the skill is called "Nature" rather than "Knowledge: Nature". Does it still key off of Intelligence or is it wisdom now (and therefore a more appropriate skill for Druids to have)?

Maybe Nature's still Intelligence-based for everyone else, but the wild empathy ability now also allows classes with it (wild empathy) to use it (the Nature skill) with Wisdom instead?

Why does it need to key off of anything? You'll notice they were particular in not mentioning ability bonus when talking about proficiency. My guess is that if you're trying to know something about a creature, you'll roll and Intelligence based Nature check, and if you're trying to do Herbalism (or Tracking?), you'll roll a Wisdom based one...

I'd really dig this. It actually fits in with allowing broader applications of skills and proficiencies, as well as making abilities more useful overall. Strength + Nature could be when you're trying to force a shelter into place, or Constitution + Nature to endure a march through brambles (in a way that wouldn't call for a full Fortitude save) and the like. I really like this sort of "stat + skill but either can vary depending on the action" setup in a lot of games, and it fits really well here.

Jason Bulmahn wrote:

Use of the word mode just lets of have sentences that make sense.

Jason Bulmahn, everybody! :)

Thanks boss.

This is what I get for trying to stay on top of board posts while in meetings trying to solve entirely unrelated issues.

I'd really dig this. It actually fits in with allowing broader applications of skills and proficiencies, as well as making abilities more useful overall. Strength + Nature could be when you're trying to force a shelter into place, or Constitution + Nature to endure a march through brambles (in a way that wouldn't call for a full Fortitude save) and the like. I really like this sort of "stat + skill but either can vary depending on the action" setup in a lot of games, and it fits really well here.

Indeed, I had not previously considered this but this is a real potential benefit to making "how much have you invested in a skill" a lot less granular. Instead of tracking specific ranks, you can now very easily handle an intimidate role based on charisma versus one based on strength simply by considering your level, your statmods, and your proficiency level.

Even if this is not in the official rules, I want to try stuff like "I want to intimidate them with my intelligence!" out in a game to see how it works.

Lady Firebird wrote:

I'd really dig this. It actually fits in with allowing broader applications of skills and proficiencies, as well as making abilities more useful overall. Strength + Nature could be when you're trying to force a shelter into place, or Constitution + Nature to endure a march through brambles (in a way that wouldn't call for a full Fortitude save) and the like. I really like this sort of "stat + skill but either can vary depending on the action" setup in a lot of games, and it fits really well here.

Indeed, I had not previously considered this but this is a real potential benefit to making "how much have you invested in a skill" a lot less granular. Instead of tracking specific ranks, you can now very easily handle an intimidate role based on charisma versus one based on strength simply by considering your level, your statmods, and your proficiency level.

Even if this is not in the official rules, I want to try stuff like "I want to intimidate them with my intelligence!" out in a game to see how it works.

I've also generally been rather fond of a flexible skill system where, if a rationale can be made for it, you can substitute in a different stat for a skill. It's pretty easy to argue why a large, muscular, brute of a half-orc with little charisma could be quite intimidating and use Str instead of Cha for that roll. On the other hand, it might be harder to explain how you make a better omelette using that same Strength score.

I'm hoping for some long term down time down time options. I'm talking months or weeks, not days.

Thanks boss.

This is what I get for trying to stay on top of board posts while in meetings trying to solve entirely unrelated issues.

Multitasking is a harsh-mistress.

I just have one concern about the "modes". I'm dubious of any system that involves the GM announcing if something is still a threat.

If the last enemy teleports away, intending to flee and not return, I assume "encounter mode" ends and this is made clear to the players.

What if they teleported away, cast a couple buffs and heals, then teleport back?

What if the last enemy goes invisible, PCs botch their Spellcraft checks, and players assume they teleported away?

What if an enemy surrenders but then would try to attack a PC?

What if an enemy hides in the treetops to stalk the PCs and attack if there's a good opening, and all PCs fail Perception checks to
spot them?

What if there's a tavern brawl at the next table over, and one PC joins in while the rest try to ignore it?

I like giving players the choice of letting their guards down or continuing to act as if enemies might be present/dangerous, without me being expected to use game terminology that could give away that kind of thing. And I'm worried the different modes might interfere with those gray areas.